Janie porter barrett biography meaning

Early Years

Barrett was born in Athens, Georgia, on August 9, 1865, the daughter of Julia Porter, an African American domestic servant and seamstress. The name of her father, who may have been white, is unknown.

Barrett Daycare Center: A Brief History - University of Virginia

She grew up in Macon, Georgia, where her mother worked for a northern white woman named Skinner who treated the child almost as a member of the family. After Julia Porter married and moved to her own home, Janie Porter remained in the Skinner household. Julia Porter evidently turned down an offer by Skinner to send her daughter north to school, where she might have passed into the white world and left her family forever.

Instead, Janie Porter’s mother sent her to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, the first of the self-help, vocational training schools for freedpeople.

Porter initially had difficulty adjusting to life in a school whose students largely came from rural backgrounds. In later years she attributed her Janie Porter Barrett - A Woman's Place CAQYB